Eye on Boise: State Rep. Heather Scott forces full reading of Idaho House’s first bill for ‘transparency’ sake

It seems all is still not well in the Idaho House of Representatives.

On Wednesday, Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, issued a statement apologizing to every member of the House for her earlier disparaging comments about other female House members. Then Thursday, she objected to a standard motion to waive full reading of a bill, forcing the clerk of the House to read House Bill 1 in full before it could be taken up.

Scott told the Associated Press that her objection was part of her efforts to bring more transparency to government, and pointed to a new statement she’s posted on her Facebook page:

“It is obvious to me that my apology will never be good enough for the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. His statements to the media define exactly how HE defines an apology. Is this a personal issue against me? Does he want to keep the headlines going?

“I have received thousands of emails, messages and voice mails of support. GOP central committees around the state are starting to pass resolutions to support my return to committees. The voice of the people will be ignored. Are there bills slipping through that I will not be able to question the agencies on? You can view over 100 agency bills already proposed by state agencies and lobbyists at www.growingfreedom idaho.com.”

The statement makes no reference to objecting to waiving full reading of bills, a tactic generally used only as a form of protest designed to gum up the works of the Legislature and prevent it from functioning – typically late in the session by the minority party, when its members are expressing frustration with the majority. Some bills can stretch for as many as 100 pages or more.

HB 1, which clarifies the phrase “in whole or in part” from House Joint Resolution 5, a constitutional amendment voters approved this year regarding administrative rules, was only a page and a half long, so it didn’t take more than a few minutes to read. “I just wanted to hear it,” Scott told The Spokesman-Review. Asked if she’ll be objecting to waiving the full reading of other bills, Scott said, “Just ones that I really want to hear, but I don’t have any plans. … I just wanted to hear the actual language of that bill. It’s a very important bill, a constitutional change.”

Asked if she was trying to gum up the works of the Legislature, Scott said, “No, that is not my intent at all. Transparency is my intent.”

Marley: Dems are ‘thought leaders’

Idaho Democratic Party Chairman Bert Marley says minority Democrats have shown that they’re the “thought leaders” in the state Capitol during the first two weeks of this year’s legislative session. They’ve proposed legislation – not yet introduced – calling for a new student loan forgiveness program to lure teachers to rural Idaho schools.

“So far, the majority party has kicked one of their own off of her committees, dealt with two weeks of internal squabbling, and proposed bills that don’t even touch on the actual problems that Idahoans face,” he said. “Our Democratic legislators are working to make sure every school district in Idaho has qualified teachers who will help our children succeed. … We will continue to work on policies that create opportunities for all of our citizens.”

Idaho moving forward on primacy

Idaho’s Department of Environmental Quality is proposing to add nine new employees next year as part of the phase-in of Idaho’s effort to achieve state primacy on the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, through which Idaho would take over permitting and enforcement of discharges of pollution into surface waters in the state from the EPA. Idaho is currently one of four states that don’t have primacy for the NPDES program, meaning the EPA handles it in their states; the others are New Mexico, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

“Our plan is to phase in our assumption of the administrative duties of that law,” DEQ Director John Tippets told the Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee. “We won’t actually start issuing permits until the middle of next year.”

Since the Legislature directed the DEQ to seek state primacy for the NPDES program in 2014, it has brought on 10 state-funded staffers plus two who are federally funded. “At whole buildout, we will need 29 employees,” Tippets told lawmakers. “We’ve been saying that all along, and the cost will be about $3.1 million” a year. That will come from a combination of state general funds, fees and “a small amount of federal dollars.”

Tippets said that when Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, it gave enforcement authority to the EPA but called on states to be the primary administrators of the program. The same approach followed with the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. “States were required to demonstrate they had the resources, including the financial resources, the employees, the expertise, the process and the statutes and rules in place to fully implement the programs,” he said. “If a state chose not to administer a particular law, that responsibility remained then with the EPA.

“With few exceptions, states have chosen to obtain primacy to administer these laws within the borders of their states, and Idaho is no exception,” Tippets said.

He added, “Honestly, we think that we do it better than the EPA would if we didn’t have primacy. We know that we work for the people of Idaho. … We know environmental laws can be hard to understand, so we try to help businesses, local governments and citizens to understand and comply with the law, and we try to help them understand the benefits of complying. Sometimes we have to use our enforcement authority, and it’s important to have the ability to do so, but we enjoy it most when we can work with the regulated community to achieve positive outcomes. And we believe that our approach of working with Idahoans to help them understand and comply with the law reaps long-term benefits.”

With the EPA administering the pollutant discharge program in Idaho, Idaho’s permit holders have long complained about big backlogs in issuing permits. About half of Idaho’s permit holders are cities or other municipalities, while the rest are industrial users from mines to fish farms and confined animal feeding operations. The 2014 legislation was strongly backed by Idaho industries.

Tippets told legislative budget writers that the 2014 legislation directed the DEQ to submit its application for primacy on the program to the EPA’s Region 10 by Sept. 1 of this year, and it has done so.

There’s also a request for one additional deputy attorney general in Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden’s budget as part of the new program, which will be called the Idaho Pollution Discharge Elimination System, or IPDES. The attorney position, to work on permitting and enforcement, is recommended for funding in Gov. Butch Otter’s budget proposal, as are the DEQ requests.

Said Tippets, “We’re expecting approval for that program by July 1 of 2018.”